Prince of Midnight

by Laura Kinsale

  His hands opened. He slipped his fingers over her cheeks, cupping her face between his palms.

  She felt hot tears fill her eyes. “I’m so weary of grief and hate.” She bent her head and stepped away, looking up into his face. “I want a chance to give you the best of myself, too.”

  Far off beyond the lake, a crane made its warbling whoop, exotic and startling against the background of the harpsichord. He lifted his hand, touched her cheek, caught the single tear that tumbled down it.

  She bit her lip. The tears came, impossible to stop. “I love you,” she said in a cracked voice. “The truth is, Monseigneur… I need you more than you need me.”

  He was silent, his hand against her skin, warm against the night air.

  “Don’t let that happen to me.” Her words shook. “Don’t leave me to be what I’ll become without you.”

  “Sunshine,” he said huskily.

  “That was what my father called me.” She kept her body still, holding his look. “If you go away from me, Seigneur—if you go away—” She spread her hands helplessly. “Tell me then… when will I ever be Sunshine again?”

  He bent toward her, his mouth barely touching the corner of her lips.

  “Always,” he whispered. “Always. Smile for me.”

  She took a tremulous breath. Her lips quivered, pressed together.

  “I’m afraid that’s a pretty feeble attempt.” He put both his hands on her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Try again, Sunshine. You’ve asked me to dance-now you’d best cultivate a sense of humor.”

  Epilogue

  Outside the silent interior of the riding school, the bells of Florence filled the early air: bright quick tones, and beneath them, the deep, slow notes that tolled in time to the pale horse’s stride. Leigh looked down from the arcaded balcony into the school, her hands on the wide stone rail. She watched mount and rider canter leisurely around the huge oval of tanbark with a motion as methodical and easy as a rocking horse, moving in and out of the sun shafts where the sheen of dust motes drifted, kindled by the light of the towering windows overhead.

  Mistral was bridle-less; S.T. rode bareback, dressed only in boots and breeches, with his queue trailing down between his shoulders in careless gold and shadow. The horse halted, retired three steps, and made a perfect demi-volte on two tracks, marking one half circle with its forefeet around another made with its hind legs before it started off in the other direction again at a canter, while the man on its back never seemed to move.

  She smiled, leaning her chin on one hand. The spectators’ balcony was empty except for herself and Nemo, who lay napping in a cool corer. No one came here now: with Italian hospitality S.T. had been invited by one of his Florentine intimates to make all the use he would of this palazzo; the cavernous apartments and riding school were completely at his service. It was nothing, the marchese said; make free of the empty palace; his family and his stable summered at some country villa in the hills.

  It was the one place and time of day in Florence that she could be sure to find S.T. alone. He was convinced that it was the riding that kept his equilibrium—that a month on foot in London was what had renewed the affliction. Leigh wasn’t so completely certain, but she saw the logic in it. The whole notion had come of an off-hand musing of hers, that if a rough sea could cure him, then perhaps constant lesser motion might have some influence. He’d seized on the idea like a drowning sailor on a floating log. She couldn’t have kept him off a horse, concerned for his safety or not. As soon as the notion had struck him, he’d had one of Mrs. Child’s steady cobs saddled. After a lengthy argument, at Leigh’s insistence he didn’t ride free, but spent hours circling at a trot on the long, with his hand gripping the pommel and an elderly groom holding the long line.

  It had mortified him, of course, to be longed like a boy at his lessons. No miracle took place: he didn’t dismount steady on his feet. The progress came in small increments, but by the time two months had passed and they were ready to board a packet for Calais, he claimed he was only dizzy if he closed his eyes and turned sharply.

  Leigh fared worse on the smooth crossing than he did. He was disgustingly cheerful when they arrived, and after they’d taken ship for Italy and spent forty days fighting contrary winds, he arrived at Naples and danced with her at the English ambassador’s ball the same night.

  She supposed that he didn’t know she came to watch in these quiet dawns at Florence; he never looked up from his silent concentration on the endless sidepasses and airs and changes of leading leg, the magnificent dance of man and horse to the sound of the morning bells. She carried her sketchbook, but she’d long since given up trying to reproduce the columns of sunlight and the heavy shade, and Mistral’s motion and power and beauty. She could not duplicate it on paper, so she engraved it on her heart.

  Down the length of the balcony, a servant appeared, hovering discreetly beneath the arch of red and black marble at the entrance. Leigh passed quietly along the gallery and accepted the thick, bundle of letters from the youth. The servant withdrew with a bow, never once raising his eyes above the hem of Leigh’s dressing robe. It occurred to her that the marchese’s well-trained staff was unaccountably loath to disturb these morning sessions in the school with any offer of service. She’d left specific instructions that these particular letters were to be brought to her as soon as they arrived—but never before had an attendant shown himself at the balcony entrance.

  She’d learned a bit of the native character in the past three months they’d been in Italy. Such diplomacy must have a reason—such rare and curious privacy a rationale. She walked slowly back down the balcony. S.T. did not glance up from his concentration. Leigh rested the parchment against her lips, looking down at him thoughtfully.

  Perhaps he knew she came to watch him after all. Aye—he’d know something like that.

  She retired back into the shadows of the balcony and broke the seal on the letters. Within the packet were all the documents she’d been awaiting. She glanced at Nemo, who rose from his corner and came trotting after her to the far end of the balcony and down the stairs that opened to the deserted stable on one side and the school on the other.

  Mistral saw them first; his ears pricked forward and then back, and S.T. looked up. He smiled. The horse circled, its tail flowing out like a milky banner, and came to a halt in front of her, its head and shoulders in a brilliant ring of sunlight that caught S.T.’s hair and contoured his bare chest in shadow.

  Facing him, Leigh felt a sudden shyness. She’d taken the steps that led to these letters on her own authority. It was possible that he wouldn’t care for it. Doubt made her take refuge in gravity. Instead of answering his smile, she only curtsied somberly. “Good morning, Monseigneur.”

  His good-humored expression faded. He tilted his head. “What’s wrong?”

  She looked at Mistral’s feet. “Nothing’s wrong. I wished to speak to you. I’ve had these… letters.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Letters. Very mysterious.”

  “’Tis a deed,” she blurted. “To your father’s estate.”

  He gazed at her. “To what?”

  “To Cold Tor. Your father’s house.” She saw the change in his face, and added in a rush, “We need a home, Monseigneur. I’ve had the mortgages cleared—there was a tenant in it, but he’ll be removing directly. My cousin Clara’s husband says ’tis in remarkable repair, beyond the gutters need new leading; he went into the country to look about it—there are twenty-six bedrooms open, and a good dower house, and stabling for three-score of horses.”

  “Twenty-six bedrooms?” he echoed in bewilderment.

  “Aye.” She put her hands behind her back. “All furnished.”

  “And you bought it?”

  “There was no need to buy it. ’Twas entailed on you at your father’s death, as surviving male issue.” She frowned at him. “Didn’t you know it, Seigneur? I discharged your mortgages. We can live there.”

  He simply star
ed at her, while Mistral lowered his head and rubbed it against a foreleg. “I don’t even know where it is,” he said in a low voice.

  Leigh gave a nonplussed little laugh. “But ’tis in Northumberland! On the coast, not thirty miles from Silvering. How could you not know that?”

  He shrugged. He looked down and curled his fingers through Mistral’s white mane. The sunlight streamed down on his hair.

  Leigh watched him twist the pale strands around his fist. “Do you wish I had not done it?” she asked quietly.

  He shrugged again and shook his head. “I just—wondered why.”

  “We need a home. Silvering is gone. ’Twould be a king’s fortune to rebuild, and I… I do not wish it. To purchase another estate the equal of yours, when there were only the mortgages that bound it—I didn’t think it practical.”

  He smiled dryly. “Or think to ask me.”

  She bit her lip. “Well… I know you, you see, Seigneur. You would have us camp under the sky at Col du Noir, living among the ruins and eating wild honeycomb and manna for the rest of our lives.”

  “Nay—I thought of that, before I was arrested.” His mouth tilted wryly. “I knew you wouldn’t like it.”

  “We need a home.”

  He leaned down and took her chin in his hand. He looked into her eyes. “You aren’t happy here?”

  Gazing up at him, at his haloed hair and his green eyes, the faint shimmer of exertion that clung to his bare skin in the heat of the summer morning—she could not stop her smile. “Oh, aye, I’m happy, S.T. Maitland,” she said softly. “You look an intriguing Italian bandit in that state of dress.” She lowered her eyes modestly. “I only mention it because perhaps you may not realize the full effect.”

  His fingers tightened a little on her chin.

  “But then,” she added, lifting her lashes, “I suspect that you realize it full well, don’t you?”

  “I do have hope,” he murmured provocatively. “Particularly of the ‘intriguing’ part.”

  She put up her hand and gently disengaged his fingers.

  “But we were speaking of practical matters. Of making a fixed home. I believe that Cold Tor is the most reasonable choice.”

  “You’ve been my wife for nigh a year,” he said. “Why is this suddenly such a topic of interest?”

  “We need a home.”

  “My home is with you, bellissima.”

  “Yes, that’s very charming, Seigneur; I value it very much, but we need a settled abode.”

  “Why?”

  “We cannot drift over Italy forever.”

  He leaned back on one arm, his palm braced on Mistral’s hip. “Only a fortnight past you wished to see Venice. And the lake at Como.”

  Leigh evaded his eyes shyly. “I find that I grow weary of traveling.”

  He was silent, watching her. She felt warmth rise in her throat and face.

  She hugged herself, feeling desperately bashful. “’Tis time to go back to England,” she said.

  He inclined his head, looking puzzled and wary—perhaps even a little hurt.

  “Please,” Leigh said, somehow unable to find better words. “Take me home.”

  He studied her. Mistral moved restlessly, dancing two steps sideways. S.T. controlled the horse and slanted her a bemused look beneath his lashes.

  “Sunshine,” he said in a strange voice, “are you trying to tell me something?”

  She swallowed and nodded.

  He sat still. She couldn’t detect what he thought. When she could stand it no longer, she went forward and put her cheek against his knee, sliding her fingers around his boot, enveloped in the scent of Mistral and warm leather.

  “Bella donna… tesoro mio…” His hands pulled her closer, tangling in her hair, knocking the loose pins free as he bent down and pressed his mouth to the top of her head. “Oh, my God, caruccia, dolcezza,—is it true?”

  “I think so,” she said, muffled against his boot. “’Twill be born in the spring, the donna said.”

  “Little wife!” He laughed into her hair. “Twenty-six bedrooms, cara? You go to nest with a vengeance.”

  She lifted her face. “I’m only being practical,” she said defensively.

  He sat back and let go of her, shaking his head. “Why is it, sweet chérie, that every idea your brain produces instantly becomes practical? Now, if I’d taken a notion to purchase some fine palace here in Tuscany boasting a mere fifteen chambers, that would forthwith be declared a wildly reckless fancy.”

  “And so it would be,” she pointed out. “We’re not buying Cold Tor. ’Tis already yours.”

  He sighed. “You want to go to staid England, do you? You asked me to make you a romantic, and I’ve failed utterly. I showed you Rome in the moonlight, and you quoted something from the Stoic philosophers. At Sorrento you thought only of turtles.”

  “The pot was copper, Seigneur! If the cook had left turtle soup in it overnight, ’twould have poisoned us all. Sorrento was beautiful beyond anything.”

  “Turtles,” he repeated glumly.

  “I loved Capri. And Ravello.”

  “You didn’t wish to see the sunset from Monte Stella.”

  Her mouth fell open. “Now that is a wicked exaggeration, if you please! When I’ll never forget how the sea turned golden and the light lay on the rocks and it seemed as if one could drop a stone right down into the water, ’twas so high and steep. I only said we should return before it was utterly dark, because of the brigands in the forest.”

  “Brigands!” He leaned over. “I can contend with brigands, can I not? I am one, my heart.”

  The comers of her mouth turned upward. She lowered her eyes demurely. “Indeed, I’ve managed to commit one romantical folly in my life. I ran off with a brigand. My mama would have wept.”

  He gave an unimpressed snort. “That’s nothing. Listen to me, cara, this is a disaster. Twenty-six bedrooms! I know what will happen now. You’ll become a prodigious excellent parent. You’ll organize us. You’ll talk all the time of mattress ticks, and cook maids, and mortgages. You’ll carry a lot of keys at your waist, and jingle authoritatively. We’ll have a governess and a kitchen garden. You’ll be terrifying.”

  She kept her gaze lowered and pressed her lips together to prevent a smile. “No doubt we’ll have a garden, I shan’t carry keys, if you don’t like it.”

  “Molto prammatica Signora Maitland,” he said sternly, “before we leave Italy, I want you to have an impractical thought.”

  Leigh gazed at Mistral’s hooves. She slowly drew her eyes upward to the slope of the horse’s shoulder, the Seigneur’s leather boot, the shape of his leg resting easily against the animal’s strength. Her glance lingered on his bared chest in the shaft of sunlight. She smiled a sly, subtle smile and met his eyes.

  He cocked his head. Leigh felt herself blushing at his quizzical expression. She almost lowered her eyes and looked away before the comprehension dawned on his face. Then his devilish eyebrows lifted, and he grinned slowly. “Oh, Sunshine… that is impractical.”

  Leigh ducked her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Impractical,” he mused. “But most provocative.”

  She cleared her throat.

  He leaned backwards, resting his elbows on Mistral’s croup. “The French have a name for it.”

  Leigh gave him an arch look. “They would, of course.”

  “Liaison à cheval, he murmured, swinging his boots slowly back and forth. Mistral’s ears pricked backward.

  “I believe you made that up.”

  “’Tis the more delicate usage.” He pushed himself upright with an easy shove. Mistral began to sidle closer to her. Leigh stepped backwards, shaking her head.

  “It was only an absurd thought,” she said.

  “Outrageous,” he agreed. “There’s the mounting block.”

  “Really, Seigneur—no.”

  Mistral moved to cut off her retreat. Snorting softly, his head high, the gray stepped s
ideways, herding her gently between the wall and the black-veined block of ornate marble steps.

  “I didn’t mean it,” she said. Tis ludicrous.”

  S.T. reached down and caught her hand. He lifted it and kissed the back of her fingers. “Step up, amante mia ”

  “My condition…”

  He made a low growling sound, pressing her hand to his mouth. “Aye—it makes me want you,” he said against her fingers. “Right now.”

  “Someone will come,” she said breathlessly.

  “Subdue those practical thoughts. No one will come. They’re Italians.”

  “Aye, Italian! The most sociable of national souls.”

  “Ah, but we’re too outlandish to bother about. ’Tis a sad case when a man grows stupid on his beautiful wife.” His hand urged her up onto the first step. “A pure scandal. She ought to be abroad with her chosen cicisbeo like a proper lady, but he forces her to spend all her mornings in a horse barn, gazing down upon him until she must go mad with the tedium of it.” He lifted her hand again, assisting her up onto the mounting platform. “I’m afraid we’re considered indecently odd already, m’dear. Fortunately we’re English, so we can get by with anything.”

  Leigh stood on the top of the mounting block, just below eye level with him. Mistral sidestepped close to the block, and then backed up until S.T. was even with her. She looked at the pale horse dubiously.

  S.T. stuck out his boot. “Put your foot on my ankle. No… not that one—your right. How can this come about with you in back of me, my foolish love? In front—there, give me your arms, ho—ho… whup—ho!—Mistral!” He caught at her as the gray shied back from the sweep of her gown across its neck. Leigh gave a little yelp and fell into place against S.T.’s chest, clutching to hang on as the horse ducked and jumped skittishly. Her legs slid up over S.T.’s, around his waist; she fell backwards, but he pulled her tight against him as he grabbed Mistral’s mane with one hand and followed the horse’s motion, holding them both on board. “Ho… ho… Mistral, you old villain, be civilized,” he muttered, as the horse broke into a canter.